I mentioned in my January Recap that although only one of my top five albums had an A grade at that point, I had considered giving A's to three of the four other albums. With more time for those albums to sink in, the three other other albums--The Best of Charlie Patton, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, and Paul Simon--all have A's now, which will put January in strong contention for the best month of 2021 (not that that's actually a thing).
In February, I'm pretty happy with how many good albums I was able to get to but I'm equally as happy with the number of albums I was able to check out in the month. Last semester, I struggled a lot keeping a good pace--in September, for instance, I only listened to 13 new albums--so I'm pleased to see I got to twenty three new albums. (One of those, Neil Young's excellent live album Way Down in the Rust Bucket, which was recorded in 1990, is the first 2021 album I've gotten to check out.) Although I had a pretty good selection to choose from, this month's top five is slightly weaker than last month's. Nevertheless, four the five albums, with Skip James's album missing out, made Rolling Stones' 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and two of them--Station to Station and Graceland--made it in the top 100. Those four albums, naturally, pretty easily made it onto my top five for the month. I struggled a little to find a fifth album to put on my list before deciding on Skip James' Complete Early Recordings instead of placing a second Paul Simon album, There Goes Rhymin' Simon, on the list.
I'm currently about eight listens into the Flying Burrito Brothers' debut The Gilded Palace of Sin and I have no plans about reviewing it anytime soon--right now, I just want to enjoy it. It's one of the top three best albums I've listened to in the new year. Paul Simon's Graceland, which was mostly recorded with South African musicians, is also pretty awesome but I've only listened to it three times so far so I won't get into the specifics of the album. For now, be satisfied with it getting a shout-out and anticipate its review, which I also have no idea when will come out--maybe a week if we're lucky. Sweetheart of the Rodeo ended up being the Byrds' second best album like I suspected and with Gram Parson's being the main creative force behind both Sweetheart of the Rodeo and The Gilded Palace of Sin, he's easily the artist of the month (not that that's a thing either). Station to Station, as I mentioned in the David Bowie recap yesterday, ended up being his best album. I'm glad he was able to sneak an album into this month's recap after he missed the mark last month because of such a competitive field. Although I don't like Skip James nearly as much as Charley Patton, his early recordings left a big enough impression on me to squeeze into the final spot of my February recap.
Skip James was one of two delta blues guitarists I checked out in February. He was largely unknown in 1931 when he laid down his best remembered music but he was rediscovered during the US folk revival and is now considered one of the great delta blues guitarists. He is often credited as helping to develop the guitar solo. In addition to playing guitar, he also played piano on several songs. Perhaps Skip James is best remembered for the song "I'm So Glad," which Cream covered on their debut. Besides James, I also checked out Son House in February. I was much less enthusiastic about his music and I was only able to get through The Delta Blues of Son House once despite several attempts. Maybe he'll click down the road. Although I haven't listened to very many artists from the 30s yet, I've gotten to the point where I think I can tackle reviewing their albums so I will work on putting reviews up for the albums I've already listened to.
In March, I plan on checking out two more 30s artists: delta bluesman Bukka White, best remembered for "Fixin' to Die Blues" and "Shake 'Em on Down," and guitar and fiddle group The Mississippi Sheiks, best remembered for the widely covered "Sitting on Top of the World" (I've heard at least five different covers of the song). In the last few days of February, I listened to Delaney & Bonnie's debut album and will hopefully be done their albums by late March. I also might be able to finish Paul Simon's discography by the end of the month, but it's hard to say. I'm not sure just how much of David Bowie's discography I will go through but, assuming I listen to everything, I will have finished his discography sometime in April. With all this uncertainty about what I'll get done in March, it's safe to say that if I get to any new artist by the end of the month, it's the psychedelic 60s band Love, whom I will probably do a saga of.
My 5 Favorite Albums from February:
David Bowie: Station to Station (1976)
The Byrds: Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968)
The Flying Burrito Brothers: The Gilded Palace of Sin (1969)
Skip James: Complete Early Recordings (2006)
Paul Simon: Graceland (1984)
(As a reminder, the albums aren't ranked; they're in alphabetical order.)
